Don’t call it a come back, I’ve been here for years…
October is over, so TECHNICALLY drawtrober is over too. I’m conflicted as my prompt list isn’t done, but I’m kinda done, if you know what I mean. Here’s week three:
So, to date, I have completed 19 drawings. And I still want to finish my initial prompt list, but maybe a bit slower. 12 drawings left, maybe I can get them all done over the month of November. But I also want to get back to video games too, and my wrestling comic has been an annoying buzz in the back of my brain. So maybe over the next two months?
Speaking of games…
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What I’m Playing
I jumped back into Death Stranding after a month off. Finished Chapter 6 and 7. Got to brave the mountain during a white-out which was intense, only to find another Super Cell storm that completed chapter 6, and concluded with another dimension/time jump to WWII, and chapter 7.
I briefly took a step into Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, which is what I’ll play more consistently once Death Stranding is done. And I’ve been playing Fall Guys, when I get 5-10 minutes to sit down (ie: my lunch break 😉 ).
Ah… Fall. My favourite season. Cooler weather and rain, warm blankets and drawing late into the evening without sweating. When I was younger I’d always say Winter was my favourite season because of the snow, and snowboarding. And was always flabbergasted when my parents claimed they didn’t like Winter. But as an adult I get it. Its cold. There’s snow. It’s a pain to drive or walk around. “Snow belongs on the mountains” and now I agree.
So yeah, Fall. And back to drawing after a summer off.
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What I’m Drawing
I’m still playing a lot of Death Stranding, so I decided to draw Fragile. Work in progress as I have to finish her funky umbrella, and then ink. Not sure when I’ll get around to finishing this one.
Dusted off Photoshop with this one. I typically don’t sketch in PS as I leave that for colour. But I wanted to test out the brushes and I’m honestly happy with the results.
Crush, daughter of Lobo. Also a work in progress that I intend to ink tonight.
Back into Clip Studio for this one to test my brushes. New computer and all. Gotta get my settings setup still. It’s a process.
That also brings me to Drawtober or Inktober, or whatever you want to call it. October’s full month long drawing event. I have my own prompt list tentatively completed with some alternates as back-ups in case I change my mind. It’s mostly video game characters or comic characters, obviously.
So that means I probably won’t be playing much games as I try and draw every day. Hopefully I’ll have time for a weekly update here.
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What I’m Playing
Still playing Death Stranding, but I did take a brief 3 day break to start and finish A Plague Tale: Innocence, as the game was leaving Game Pass ahead of the sequel’s release. A good stealth / puzzle type game with lots of rats. Gorgeous visuals too. Excited for the sequel.
Death Stranding I finished Chapter 4 and Chapter 5. Chapter 4 was the WWI time jump sequence that was pretty crazy. And chapter 5 is Mama’s heartbreaking story. Seems like there’s a lot of heartbreaking stories so far, with Mama an.d Fragile. Still loving the game and hope to get in some time over the next month
I’m playing a lot of Death Stranding. The past few days not as much as I’ve had other things on my plate (I’ll pick it up again tonight), but the game released into Xbox PC Game Pass Aug 23, I started playing Aug 28th, and between Aug 28 and Sept 6 I’ve put in over 20 hours. And I am loving it. I am a little concerned that I’m still only on Chapter 3 of 14 after 20 hours, but we’ll see where it goes.
I love the mechanics and gameplay, and the story is just the weird style that only Hideo Kojima can deliver. Looks and plays really well on my new PC too. And it has a photo mode!!
A few below, but here’s the link to the gallery I’ve created. 57 photos and counting:
Not really a lot lately as I’ve been busy with Death Stranding. But I did need to try out the software and monitor to make sure everything worked after switching over to the new PC, so I worked a bit on my Batwomen:
Sketch/Ink done, with flat colours.
But other than that, with my lack of time I’ve also felt a creative drought. Possibly just burnt out from life in general. I do have some new ideas cooking though.
Also recently was the #faceyourart2022 annual challenge that popped up, so I put together the faces of all my drawings this year. A few are missing from the May Sketch A Day as I wanted the clean 3×3 squares. Overall I am happy with my production so far this year. Its only September now so I still have a few months, and as the weather cools down I find I produce more.
Picture 1:
Psylocke, X-23, Storm
Kate Bishop, Rogue, Domino
DareDevil, Harley, Electra
Picture 2:
The Riddler, Ghost Rider Spider-Gwen, Hana Solo
Raven, Mystique, Baby Doll
Lady Deadpool, Spider-Man, Punchline
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What I’m Reading
I’ve been thinking lately about this section and I wanted to have a more focused view on what I’m consuming, instead of the weekly comic book day pull box, as after a month, that list just repeats itself. Maybe I’ll highlight new titles I’m getting or one-off graphic novels or something. This week I will highlight a few things:
Ping Pong Vol 1 and 2. A very popular sports manga about Ping Pong. I still am a regular listener of the Mangasplaining podcast, but don’t pick up nearly as many books as I did when it first started. But the occasional ones that pique my interest I will grab.
I purchased a few Frank Cho art books. Amazing stuff. 20+ career.
And late last year I backed a kickstarter project for Top Cow’s Cyber Force complete collection which hasn’t been in print in any form since 1994. Finally arrived 🙂
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That’s all for now I think. I will get back to more Death Stranding, and I have some ideas brewing for some more art.
Back from vacation. Back to work. I believe I can see the future, as I repeat the same routine.
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Still not fully re-activated or re-energized yet. It’s still summer. It’s still hot out. My new computer still sits on the floor, not plugged in or setup in any way. A heavy expensive tripping hazard… Still figuring out what I need to backup off my old computer to transfer over. Photoshop brushes and assets, stuff like that. Everything’s up in the cloud now anyways.
I have been playing some games though, since coming back from vacation. Booted up Darksiders 3 as that had been sitting in my queue for ages. Darksiders: Genesis as well. Also jumped back into Destiny2.
It’s probably been about a year since I last played Destiny. I’ve probably mentioned it before, but I only play Destiny for the story. So I typically jump back in when there’s an expansion. I don’t have friends to play with so I’m locked out of the raids, and multiplayer never really interested me. So I stick exclusively to the campaigns. When I last played, I was going through Shadowkeep. This past week, I bought Beyond Light and The Witch Queen.
Destiny 2 is a solid game with lots of content. If you want story, its there, if you want more, there’s more. End-game, raids, multiplayer, loot, quests – it has it all. And the visuals are amazing. Especially the area/map/level designs and detail. Sure it can feel repetitive at times as you retread a lot of the planets when going through the campaigns, but that just gives you more time to appreciate the level of detail. As I type this, I’m working my way through Beyond Light, before moving on to the latest expansion. And also coincidentally enough, tomorrow at Gamescon there will new Destiny 2 news.
In co-op, played through the latest new level in Human Fall Flat. And playing through Far Cry 6, and Rider’s Republic for fun.
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In the news, I saw that Death Stranding is coming to Xbox Game Pass PC. Somehow the publishers of the PC port got around Sony and got permission from Kojima Games to add the game to PC Game Pass. Not the new Director’s Cut but the original 2020 PC release. So it still remains a Playstation Console Exclusive, but now on the Xbox PC Platform and has Xbox Achievements. Take that Sony.
I’ve had this game for the PS4 since release, and it’s unopened. I honestly just don’t get around to turning on the PlayStation. I still haven’t played Days Gone or Last of Us II and I feel bad. But with this coming to Game Pass, it gives me a reason to try out my new PC as the game rig it was designed to be, play a game I’ve been waiting to play, and get achievements. Win win win.
Also saw that the Saint’s Row reboot releases tomorrow and the reviews have been pretty meh. I got into the Saints Row series with #2, and didn’t make it very far. I did have a lot of fun with #3, and Saint’s Row III was, in my opinion, the best of the series as it had the perfect blend of gang campaign + crazy weird stuff. After III they just went all-in on the weird and it lost a lot of its appeal. Still fun games in co-op though. But, I can understand why they would want to bring it back to its roots. I’ll have to do more digging, read more reviews and actually watch some gameplay before I decide to invest. I got enough in my queue and not enough time, that I don’t really need any new games right now anyways. (Editor’s note: previous paragraphs about Death Stranding notwithstanding – it’s not a new game 😉 )
That, AND I have 18 levels more to unlock in the Season 1 pass of Fall Guys before next week – so I’m busy.
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I’m definitely starting to get a little antsy, feeling the pull to get back to drawing (has it already been a month?), and excited to try out the new rig. So I think that will be my plan this week.
The summer isn’t a very productive time for me. I work all day on the computer, so at the end of the day it’s hard to find the motivation to sit back down in front of the computer again into the late hours of the evening. Plus during the summer, with the heat, I’d rather do anything else than sit in an already warm room.
So I don’t really do a lot. I’ll play games, catch up on TV/movies, or read comics instead.
I did force myself to sit down and draw though, as it had been a month.
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What I’m Drawing
Yeah yeah, another Gwen Stacy / Spider-Gwen, I know. This started out as just a sketching exercise for a warm up – no expectations, and then turned into a painting exercise. Overall I’m happy with it. Her head is a little too round, and I’m not satisfied with the hood shading, but it is what it is. Moving on.
I can always find something I don’t like about a finished drawing, and that’s motivation to start the next one, and do better. And I certainly like starting projects, just not necessarily finishing them. Always have at least 18 work-in-progress pieces I say, so I never get bored. 😉
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What I’m Playing
Fall Guys, and quite a bit. The game recently went free to play and cross-platform, so it’s been my casual go-to when i have some free time. I’m usually good for a few rounds before I move on to something else, but that’s allowed me to rank up to level 40 so far this season, and win a few solo games.
Played and finished a smaller indie game as well, Sea of Solitude. Interesting platforming/exploration/puzzle game like Rime, but simpler. Its about depression and loneliness. Kinda dark, but artistic.
Played through Mortal Kombat 11 main campaign, still got the DLC expansion. Played through Sniper Elite 5 in coop.
Played through Dead Cells after they added the accessibly settings so I can play on easy mode to experience the game through, without struggling. I’m not really a fan of rogue-like games. I prefer to experience the game/story/whatever once through, and move on. So the whole gameplay loop of dying only to start over is tedious.
Also started playing through Hitman 2 – which is frustrating from an achievement competitionist perspective. Hitman 2 includes all of Hitman’s previous campaign levels AND all the achievements all over again. And I really don’t want to play through the game again just to unlock all the achievements. It would be nice if that save just transferred over, which apparently DOES work for Hitman 2 -> 3. But not Hitman 1. Oh well, gamer problems.
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I really need to get back in to the routine of these, but might leave that till after summer vacation. So lets say… September we’ll be back on track. I’ll try my best to update as frequently as I’m able until then.
Idly Playing the Waiting Game 